100 years ago in Spokane: Local presidential candidate falls far back in new poll

Spokane’s dream of having the Republican presidential nominee was looking shaky after local favorite Sen. Miles Poindexter slipped to ninth place among GOP candidates in a nationwide poll.

Gen. Leonard Wood was in first place, followed by Herbert Hoover and Sen. Hiram Johnson. Poindexter gathered only 2,451 votes in the Literary Digest’s poll, compared to 202,309 for Wood.

Poindexter’s chances looked slim in an even more important tally. He had won only 17 delegates to the convention, compared to 134 for Wood.

As it turned out, none of the above would win the Republican nomination. Warren G. Harding emerged as a compromise candidate, and went on to win the presidency.

From the court beat: A Spokane jury took only one hour to acquit Ted and Marie McDonald of grand larceny for stealing the auto of murder victim W.H. McNutt.

This meant that Ted McDonald could walk free, but his sisters Fay and Marie McDonald were still headed for prison time. The sisters were found guilty of forgery in earlier trials. Fay was sentenced to three-to-15 years in the penitentiary, and Marie’s sentence was pending after she asked for a new trial.

All three McDonald siblings had previously been acquitted of murder after they pinned McNutt’s murder on another sibling, Will McDonald, who was still missing.

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(From the Associated Press)

1940: In his first speech as British prime minister, Winston Churchill said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”